My Childhood Ambition: The BBC Nine O’Clock News Obituary

‘Michael Hickman has died today. He was 58.’ Some ambition, huh?

I remember it distinctly. The BBC News reader from the days when the BBC News backdrop was a cheap scenery flat with beige carpet tacked to it. There was a TV screen shaped panel above the reporter’s right shoulder, in reality a Colour Separation Overlay screen onto which badly processed film of the day’s events would be superimposed. Or poorly taken photographs of the newsworthy individuals of the day. Politicians, world leaders and celebrities. My interest, back then, would only have been in the latter.

Most especially when they had died.

1984 was a bad year for celebrity deaths. In short order, three beloved famous figures fell — Tommy Cooper, magician and comedian, live on television on 15th April 1984. I am sure we were watching. Eric Morecambe, one half of the most beloved double act on television, Morecambe and Wise, on 28th May 1984.

And then Leonard Rossiter, actor famous for so many fine comedy roles (and a great many fine dramatic roles, too) on 5th October 1984. That was another one that was difficult to forget, dying as he did between parts two and three of his new, admittedly rather disappointing, sitcom, “Tripper’s Day”. We had the video recorder at home by then. VHS. One cassette to be recorded over multiple times until it wore out (just time-shifting, no keeping), and yet we kept that particular show for a while. And the news report of his death. We kept that, too.

I remember it distinctly because that year the celebrity deaths seemed to come round with such depressing regularity. Not that the eight year old me knew it was depressing. Sometimes, depending on world events, the story would even lead the news. “The comedian, Eric Morecambe, has died. He was 58.”

He was 58. I remember that well.

And then there would be a clip of two on very swiftly processed 16mm film of peers and colleagues saying what a marvellous fellow today’s dead entertainer had been. Maybe a shot of the hospital where they had met their end. Maybe a wreath or two laid outside. That kind of thing.

We paid attention to such events in our household. I blame John Lennon. I can just about remember the breaking news of John Lennon’s murder in 1980. I seem to recall a darkened room, our living room or whatever we called it in that first dreadful flat. I seem to recall it coming on the news. I seem to remember that there was a strong reaction.

I definitely remember his songs played on the radio over and over. I definitely remember how often it would be mentioned in the years to come. How a certain person’s life had also ended that night, she said. She so often said. When mine had only recently begun.

I marked my childhood in celebrity deaths. Lennon and Cooper and Morecambe and Rossiter and later lesser known celebrities such as Dustin Gee and Patrick Troughton. I recall the news broadcasts. I recall how they would always be phrased. “So-and-so has died today, aged such-and-such.” And we paid attention. And we talked about it. And I remember.

As with all my childhood memories, there is one memory that stands in for all memories. Sometimes, I think that if you laid those memories end-to-end and worked out the running time it would come to no more than five minutes. And so many of them are from the television. Too many.

But this memory is of a walk into town, to the shops, to the cheapest of the cheap supermarkets, dodging the white dog mess and the litter. And in silence. Someone had said something. Or someone hadn’t said something. Offence had been caused. I was left to my own thoughts, as I so often was.

I remember the pavement. I remember the cooked bin juice smell of the council estate summer. I remember the cut-way past the school and on to Kwik Save. I remember my thoughts.

“Michael Hickman has died today. He was 58.”

I was mentally rehearsing the obituary I might get on the telly should I be lucky enough to become famous. I wasn’t thinking of how I might become a comedian or an actor, although God alone knew how much the woman who was, right then, in silent and scowling mode wanted her children to become famous. Mostly so they would help her out of her situation. She had been very clear about that over the years.

I wasn’t thinking about the rise to stardom or what I might want to achieve as a “star”. I had leaped straight to the obituary on the BBC News. I was rehearsing “my” obituary as it might be reported on BBC News.

I was eight years old.

I remember it distinctly. But I hadn’t thought about it in years. Decades, perhaps.

No, it took the counseling to recover it from my jumbled synapses.

The silent and scowling woman used to talk of becoming famous as a means of escape.

But it turns out her dead celebrity obsession put another form of escape altogether in my head. Even earlier than I might have thought.

Considering how my first attempt to execute such an escape wasn’t even a quarter of the way to 58, you will forgive me if I don’t thank her for that.

If you would like more of the same, the recent “Life in Six Word Chapters” was a superb Memoirist prompt and certainly got me thinking. You might also enjoy “Self. Sufficient” — hopefully a bit more than I enjoyed the experience at the time!